Jurors Flub Damages in MP3.com Suit

The jurors who ordered Internet music provider MP3.com on Friday to pay nearly $300,000 in fines for copyright infringement to Tee Vee Toons Records have told the trial judge that they meant to award $3 million in damages, according to reports.

After seeing press reports about their $300,000 award to TVT, the jurors during the weekend informed Judge Jed Rakoff of U.S. District Court in New York about the error in their calculations.

TVT was the first independent label to sue MP3.com. Five major music firms sued or settled with the site last year.

TVT, New York, had sought $8.5 million in damages, claiming that MP3.com, San Diego, infringed on its rights to 145 songs.

MP3.com stored digitized tracks from Tee Vee Toons' collection in its computers. The Web site provided access to music from that database, letting its subscribers hear CDs from their personal collections on any computer, as long as they could show they already owned the disc. Subscribers verified ownership by inserting the CD into a computer, where MP3.com scanned it.